For the next five hours, Nick cleaned the Training Ground. After the slaves were done cleaning, the mage guard ordered them to go back to their rooms and not leave until further notice.
Today… today was something. Nick learned many things today, some he wanted to learn, and some were shoved down his throat.
First, he saw a girl use a spell called Energy Bolt. He observed it in great detail and was able to list another spell in the system.
Then, he saw a young girl, barely 14, die a miserable death. She died because she stood too close to the Energy Bolt’s target, and the caster couldn’t be bothered with worrying about her. You wouldn’t believe it, but the mage guards were actually worried… worried about how they were going to handle her corpse. Should they use her corpse or sell it? Tough question indeed.
That day, Nick felt a rising hatred towards the mages, especially the human mages.
Back on earth, he was a street rat and saw death on a regular basis. There, people who committed murder were considered vile and villainous. You know, even the vilest of that bunch didn’t see corpses as a material to be sold or used as tools.
From the very first moment he opened his eyes, he didn’t see the humans of this world in a good light. But now that he had seen the true extent of their depravity, his hatred for them was at new heights.
With hate this strong, one could only wonder what would happen when Nick, a mage equipped with an almighty system, would finally reach his true potential.
After entering his room, he sat on his chair and took a deep breath.
“It is no good. I have to stay calm and collected. For now, my only focus should be on improving my strength. Unless I have crushing strength, I can’t change anything.”
At this time, A mage guard opened the door and entered his room. He put Nick’s usual dinner, red soup and a loaf of black bread, on the table and left the room without looking at Nick as always.
The students’ and guards’ behavior towards slaves reminded him of his old life. When he was a kid picking up trash on the street, no one spared him a second glance. Why would they look at a kid who picking up trashes.
No one acknowledged him as a fellow human and treated him as if he was an animal or an object. Most of the times even lower than an animal as many people who lives in the streets lived a horrible life compared to pets of other people.
Nick got up from his bed and started eating his food. After about five minutes, he was done with his food and opened his status.
[Name]: Nick
[Status]: Level 1 (Imper Level Mage)
[Strength]: 1.0
[Intelligence]: 1.4
[Magical Abilities]
Life Siphon (Proficiency: 5%)
Energy Bolt (Proficiency: 10%)
After looking at his status, Nick nodded and began his daily thinking session.
“If I look at the live demonstration of a spell, my proficiency in that spell increases by leaps and bounds.
“But I don’t see the same amount of improvement when I try to visualize the spell. It must be because I don’t have enough knowledge about spells or magic in general.
“When I see a spell, my consciousness helps me understand it. To visualize, I have to work my brain like a machine.
“The good thing is visualizing helps in increasing the proficiency even when I’m not all that knowledgeable about magic or mana.”
After thinking about the factors that govern his proficiency improvement, Nick decided to focus more on the Energy Bold spell and keep the Life Siphon at the back of his head.
The reason behind this choice was simple. Energy Spell was an elementary spell, and almost all mage students used it. Since it was a common spell, Nick could see it being practiced by all students.
Constant observation of the same spell was bound to increase his proficiency in that spell. It said that observation and inspecting is basis of learning and discovering something new almost all scientist back in the earth used observation so that they could understand the nature and many other things such as the “Gravity” which can be classified as a “Nature Science”
Nick sat in his chair and closed his eyes. He will try to visualize Energy Bolt. He began replaying the scene of that girl casting the spell and then tried to make out the small details in her movements.
“Energy Bolt is a basic spell that almost all mage students can use.
“To cast this spell, a mage manipulates the magical energy into accumulating on their fingertips. After the magic energy turns into a condensed form, the mage shoots the spell at their target.”
Compared to Life Siphon, a spell that required the caster to create some sort of magical link to siphon energy off their target, Energy Bolt seemed like a much simpler spell to Nick.
“Compared to creating a magical link, controlling the magical energy, linking to a target, and then sucking energy off your target—creating a ball of magical energy is much easier.”
While he was lost in his thoughts, he was struck by an incredulous idea.
“If magical energy can be controlled and used, why do people still need spellbooks and spells? Maybe spells are just manuals that show us how to control the magical energy and get the desired effect. This means I do not need a spell to use magical energy. I just have to learn how to control the magical energy inside me.”
This might sound absurd to some, but Nick had absolute confidence in his hypothesis.
As he concluded his current train of thoughts, he was struck by another question that he just had to ask the system.
His theory might work for normal mages as they had a mana pool, but Nick had no mana pool, so would it work for him?
“System, can I control the magical energy inside me despite not having a mana pool?”
The system answered after three seconds.
“User can use his magical energy like other mages. However, the user will have no gauge of his own magical energy, and excessive use will still be dangerous to the user. Basically there is not much of a difference but it is still dangerous if user too much magical energy that his level could not handle.”
Nick took a deep breath, and just when he was about to start his visualization exercise, he saw that his proficiency had improved.
A big smile appeared on his face, not because of his increased proficiency but because this proved that his hypothesis was correct. According to how system works, if he think about correct ideas and fuel his ideas with knowledge and imagination the spells will increase in the matter of profiency.
Not only was the proficiency for his spells improved, but even his intelligence was higher than before. All this pointed at the same thing—his visualization training and theories were the correct way to go.
So, from now on, Nick wouldn’t have to worry about his theories being incorrect.
If his theories were correct, he would see an improvement in his spell proficiency; if they weren’t, he would see no improvement. At least even if it is not correct he will have his chance to find if his ideas are worth something or not.
Nick smiled and began his visualization training.
